INDUSTRY ATTENDANCE NEEDED !!!!!!
INFRASTRUCTURE PRESS CONFERENCE
U.S. SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL
TIME 10:00AM
TODAY MONDAY – APRIL 19, 2021
PARK & RIDE LOT – 418 BEE STREET
MERIDEN
PLEASE BE SURE TO JOIN US TO SHOW OUR SUPPORT FOR A FEDERAL INFRASTUCTURE BILL!
We need a strong industry turnout to to send a message that this is
important!
Please attend and bring others from your organization!
Major federal infrastructure funding is at stake!
Don’t leave this for someone else!
State Pier redevelopment estimated to cost $235.5 million
Kimberly Drelich
New London — The state has put a $235.5 million overall price tag on the project to redevelop State Pier into an offshore wind hub.
The figure represents the actual cost of the redevelopment, with $204 million for the construction project and an additional $31 million for “soft costs,” Office of Policy and Management Deputy Secretary Konstantinos Diamantis said during a State Bond Commission meeting Friday.
During the meeting, the State Bond Commission approved $55 million toward redeveloping and upgrading the pier, which Connecticut Port Authority Executive Director John Henshaw told The Day will enable the project to move forward with work that is currently permitted and essentially get started.
Energy companies Ørsted and Eversource plan to use the upgraded pier for assembly and staging for offshore wind turbines.
The port authority board of directors at a Tuesday meeting had approved a construction manager at risk agreement with Kiewit, an Omaha-based company, that set a “Target Guaranteed Maximum Price” of $204 million, including $193 million for construction and $11 million for contingency, Henshaw said. There is then an additional $31 million for the project's “soft costs,” including construction administrator fees, design, permitting, environmental mitigation and the railroad property lease.
The board on Tuesday also approved the first set of construction work packages, and anticipates approving another round next Tuesday, Henshaw said. He estimates demolition could start as early as May and some of the work could begin as soon as June.
Henshaw said the port authority’s project management team, which includes representatives from OPM and the Department of Administrative Services, is “overseeing the project to make generational improvements to transform State Pier into a state-of-the-art heavy-lift capable port facility that will accommodate a wide variety of cargoes, including wind turbine generator staging and assembly.”
The majority of the project is slated to be funded by the state, with $75 million in private sector funds, according to the Bond Commission agenda.
The last most recent estimates had put the project's cost at $200 million.
Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, asked during Friday’s Bond Commission meeting if the requested funding was intended to address some of the project’s cost overruns.
Diamantis said they are “not necessarily cost overruns,” but that original estimates, before the current administration got involved, were based on more preliminary documents and ideas of what the project would look like. As the project developed, the state, with experts at OPM and DAS Construction Services, developed a cost estimate based on full design documents and a completed contract with the construction manager, and also is incorporating any other costs associated with the project.
During a media briefing, Gov. Ned Lamont said, “this has been a long time coming and it’s a long negotiation” but at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that the vast expansion of State Pier will bring New London Harbor, which he called one of the great harbors in the Northeast and the Eastern Seaboard, “back to its full potential.”
“It’s going to allow that harbor to be able to accommodate some of the biggest freight back and forth,” he said. “Thanks to (U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District) you have a rail connection there and in the meantime for the next 10, 20 years, we’ll see, it’s going to be the center of wind power and allow us to not only assemble but potentially even make some of the key components for wind power in this country and in this region.”Among other items, the Bond Commission on Friday also approved additional requests from the port authority, including $5 million toward a project to dredge and improve navigation in New Haven Harbor, and $2,956,200 for the authority’s Small Harbor Improvement Projects Program, for projects in seven communities, according to the agenda.
That funding includes $649,333 toward a new Thames Street dock and $75,000 for the access to the municipal dock study in the City of Groton, according to the Bond Commission agenda.
Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick said the project, in the works for two to three years and intended to help revitalize Thames Street and draw people and businesses to the area, calls for an eight-slip boat dock and a study on how to configure Thames View Park and make it handicapped-accessible from Thames Street down to the dock. The city also will contribute some funds toward the project. Once the city receives the state funding, the next steps would include a public hearing, local authorization to spend the money, and then a request for proposals process.
“This is great news towards economic development on Thames Street,” he said.
Norwich received $544,020 to replace the nearly 35-year-old public docks at the Howard T. Brown Memorial Park at Norwich Harbor.
“It took a long time,” Norwich Harbor Management Commission Chairman Tucker Braddock said.
Norwich submitted a request to the Connecticut Port Authority in 2019 to install new public docks and ramps on either side of the boat launch and running the length of the park. New safety railings will be installed on the back side of the docks, Braddock said. The project also includes an 80-foot-long handicapped-access ramp. The work likely will be done in the fall to avoid disruptions during the summer boating and fishing seasons and for people visiting the park.
Danbury City Council to consider $99 million career academy
Julia Perkins
DANBURY — The City Council is expected to consider a June
vote on the proposed $99 million career academy during a virtual meeting on
Monday.
This new school serving students in middle and high school
would be built within three “pods” of the Summit,
a mixed-use development in the 1.2 million-square-foot former Union Carbide
world headquarters on the city’s west side.
The project has been largely popular among education and
city officials and is seen as a way to help address the growing
school enrollment, while providing students with opportunities to study
various career fields and pursue internships.
A virtual meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday evening
where public comments submitted from residents will be read. To submit feedback
about the academy, residents should email comments@danbury-ct.gov with
their full name and address by 5 p.m. Monday. The meeting will be streamed on
YouTube.
The council will meet virtually at 8 p.m. to consider the
mayor’s request for a vote to be held on the project on June 15.
Typically, the project would go to referendum, but the
governor’s executive orders related to the coronavirus pandemic allow the
council to approve the borrowing package itself. The council will decide Monday
whether to hold the referendum or vote itself.
District officials have said they expect 1,400 students to
eventually attend the academy, with 1,040 high school and 360 middle school
students. Superintendent Sal Pascarella has
said the district would phase in students and staff.
Eventually, the school would offer six academies focused on
professional health services; information, cybersecurity and technology;
scientific innovation and medicine; global enterprise and economics; art,
engineering and design; and communications and design.
School administrators have been inspired by an academy in
Nashville as they craft their plans. The Nashville school has raked in $8
million in fees by hosting other districts interested in the concept.
It’s one of two ongoing projects to address enrollment
growth, with construction expected to begin this summer on an annex to Ellsworth
Avenue Elementary School.
Danbury is racing to meet the state’s deadline for a grant
that would cover 80 percent of the academy’s cost. Plus, $2.4 million of city
costs would be covered by money the council approved last
year for school projects.
The city is required by law to submit its application by
Oct. 1, but the state has asked for a draft by Sept. 1, so that any necessary
tweaks can be made.
This would be the first time Connecticut would reimburse a
municipality for a school project that uses the “design-build” method. City
officials have said the project may become a model for other communities.
Downtown Crossing project to close stretch of New Haven's South Frontage Road for 5 months
Ed Standard
NEW HAVEN — The road — South Frontage Road —literally will
rise soon, as Downtown
Crossing enters its next phase of transforming Route 34 from a highway
to a cityscape of safe streets, bicycle and walking paths and space for
economic development.
The road, however, will have to be closed between College
and Church streets for five months, beginning in June, in order for it to be
elevated 8 feet. Congress Avenue from Lafayette Street to South Frontage also
will close, according to those involved in planning the project.
“It’ll be nice. I think this is going to become a main
pedestrian path connection to the central business district,” Hall said.
“We’re rebuilding the neighborhood in a way that has the
look and feel of a traditional city neighborhood,” said Economic Development
Administrator Michael Piscitelli.
The bridge is now Phase 4 of the project, split off from
Phase 3 and planned for construction beginning in 2023. The decision was made
so funds could be found “in more reasonable chunks and … to reduce traffic
impacts because 101 College will be in construction at the same time” as Phase
3, said Anna Mariotti of HTNB Corp., the city’s consultant on Downtown
Crossing.
Winstanley Enterprises, which also built 100 College St.,
plans to complete 101
College St., a 12-story, 500,000-square-foot bioscience research building,
in November 2022. Mariotti said the company will break ground in June. “There
will be one more parcel free for development in the future” between Temple and
Church streets, she said.
Drivers on South Frontage Road now can see how much higher
the road will be. A packed-earth “support of grade” wall rising just to the
left will hold in the fill as the roadbed is raised.
“The grade of the road has to be raised approximately 8 feet
to meet the future bridge conditions,” Mariotti said.
Hall said the road and nearby buildings and parking lots no
longer will dip but all be on the same plane. It will improve “how the
architecture relates to the street,” she said.
“We have to have a 16-foot clearance for every roadway,”
said Doug Hausladen, city director of transportation, traffic and parking. The
service drives between South Frontage Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard
can’t be lowered because the water table is too high in that area, he said.
When South Frontage is closed at College Street, drivers
coming down the road will turn right on College Street, double back on Congress
Avenue to Lafayette Street, which will be made one way temporarily, turn left
on Church Street South “and use the reconnected Orange Street entrance to the
connector,” Hausladen said.
York Street also will be made a two-way street between
Howard Avenue and South Frontage Road so drivers can leave South Frontage
before getting to College Street.
Also, on May 15, Columbus Avenue will be reopened
permanently between Church Street South and South Orange Street, where the
Church Street South housing project was razed. It’s been closed since the
1980s, Mariotti said. Drivers will be able to continue on Columbus Avenue to
Orange Street and then to the connector entrance or on to Union Station. “It
should relieve some of the traffic in this area,” Hall said.
“We’re doing a lot of little things like this to help
congestion,” Mariotti said.
In addition to detours, the city is recommending people
start using alternate routes to get out of the city, such as using Elm and Orange
streets to get to the Trumbull Street entrance to northbound Interstate 91 or
State and West Water streets to get onto Interstate 95 south.
During much of the time South Frontage Road is closed,
“colleges and universities are on summer break,” Mariotti said. “We don’t
anticipate it will be 100 percent pre-COVID traffic levels even in October,
based on conversations with large employers,” such as Gateway Community
College, Alexion and the Knights of Columbus.
The reconnection
of Orange Street, Phase 2 of Downtown Crossing, will be complete in June,
Hausladen said.
Another change involves the service drives that go under the
Alexion building and the Air Rights Garage, Mariotti said. There are two lanes
in each roadway. During the construction, the north service road will become
two-way while the south road is closed. Then in February, they will switch.
All of Downtown Crossing also has been designed to
accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, with protected intersections on Orange
Street, bike paths and public plazas, one of which will be part of the 101
College St. project. Because of the size of the intersections, there will be no
left turns throughout the area, in order to avoid cars backing up and clogging
the road, Mariotti said.
“From a pedestrian standpoint, when you get to Union
Station, you can walk to Amistad Park, to 101 [College St.] plaza to the New
Haven Green,” Hausladen said. “It’s the right distance to walk and sit down and
take a rest.”
People can sign up for weekly email updates at downtowncrossingnewhaven.com,
and follow the project on social media. Hall said closing the road for five
months will mean less disruption over the long run; closing one lane at a time
would take much longer because each could only be raised partway and the lane
closures would alternate.
“We’re asking for the public’s patience through this,” Hall
said. “At the end of the day, we think this will be worth it.”
Getting There: It’s time to invest in Connecticut’s rail freight
Jim Cameron
How would you like a plan to remove thousands of trucks from
Connecticut highways, clean up the air and create new jobs?
Who wouldn’t? It’s a win-win-win plan that you’d expect Gov.
Ned Lamont to embrace, especially in this time of the Transportation
Climate Initiative.
The solution? Invest in our state’s freight railroads.
Yes, there are still freight trains in Connecticut, just not
very many. But there could be more.
In its earlier days as a profitable, private railroad, the
New Haven line ran hundreds
of freight trains each day. But today the railroad is too crowded with
(relatively faster) passenger trains, and the bridges and catenary lines are
too low for modern double-stack container trains.
In other parts of Connecticut, freight still travels by rail
on more than 500 miles of track, most of it owned by the state Department of
Transportation and leased to eight different private operators.
In western Connecticut we have the Housatonic, Pam Am
Southern, Connecticut Southern, the Naugatuck and Providence and Worcester
Railroads, to name but a few.
These short
line railroads already carry 3.8 million tons of freight annually in
our state, keeping 350,000 truck loads off our roads and reducing greenhouse
emissions by 75 percent. Diesel trains can carry up to 500 ton-miles per
gallon. Trucks manage about 130.
These freight railroads carry everything from chlorine-based
disinfectants for water treatment, food for our tables, huge electrical
transformers and bulk commodities. Their customers include such Connecticut
businesses as Becton Dickinson, Kimberly Clark and Home Depot.
There are even plans to turn an abandoned factory site in
Naugatuck into an inland
port, receiving freight trains of goods to be offloaded onto trucks for
local delivery.
Consider the mighty 19-mile-long Naugatuck Railroad Founded
in 1845, the line once ran from Winsted to Bridgeport, offering both passenger
trains and freight service. These days the line is much shorter, but they still
hand off long loads of boxcars filled with construction debris bound for
landfills in Ohio.
While marginally profitable, these freight railroads need
help to continue, let alone expand, their service to the state’s businesses if
they are to meet federal expectations of a 30 percent increase in rail freight
traffic by 2040.
As their “landlord,” the state needs to invest in their
infrastructure by rebuilding bridges to carry heavier loads, lay new track,
replace worn ties and improve grade crossings.
Eight years ago the state bonded $10 million to fund such
repairs and the railroads chipped in their own money, too. They had to, with
$80 million of needed work, most of which has gone unfinished.
Early in 2020, the legislature approved an additional $10
million in investments, but the Bond Commission has yet to approve the funding
and issue the bonds.
When the Bond Commission met last week, they found
$467 million in total funding for dozens of projects but the $10 million for
freight rail wasn’t even on the agenda.
My Hearst colleague Ken
Dixon asked the governor if his old “debt diet” was over, to which he
replied no, that the new bonding was an “investment” in everything from housing
to economic development, thanks to interest rates being so low (1.8 percent).
Ten million dollars in state bonding is chump change. At
their next meeting the Bond Commission and the governor should get on with the
job of investing in Connecticut’s rail freight.
Dakota Partners has been one of the most active apartment developers in Greater Hartford over the past five years, and despite some challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Waltham, Mass.-based firm remains as focused as ever on the region.
That’s according to Dakota Partners co-founder and President Roberto Arista, who in a recent interview detailed his firm’s pandemic experiences of the past year and its future plans for Greater Hartford.
“We are definitely looking to do more projects in and around the Hartford area,” Arista said.
Dakota already has a number of them on its plate.A long-delayed apartment project, Cedar Pointe, is now headed toward a potential construction start this summer, after it was recently awarded $1.9 million in low-income housing tax credits from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and a $4 million loan from the state Bond Commission.
Dakota’s application in last year’s annual round of tax credits was unsuccessful, pushing back the project start date. The $26 million first phase includes 72 affordable units. Dakota hopes to build another 36 units at a future date.
Dakota is also working to put together financing for two other projects in the Capital City, one of which has not been previously reported.
The firm recently inked a purchase agreement for a mill property at 287 Homestead Ave. Built in the 1920s, the mill houses the Smith Worthington Saddlery Co. The owner of that business and of the mill itself, Curtis C. Hanks, died last year.
Arista said Dakota has approached the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) about potential financing options for a market-rate apartment project, tentatively called Saddlery Lofts. If CRDA isn’t interested, Dakota will likely develop a mix of affordable apartments at the site, delaying the project’s start date to 2022, Arista said.
Though Dakota has built market-rate apartments, including in Hartford, the majority of its developments, which are spread across New England and in Virginia, are affordable under federal formulas.
The upscale market-rate multifamily market has been active during the pandemic in this region, but Arista said the need for affordable apartments remains as strong as ever.
“The demand for affordable is always there, it’s a constant,” he said.
In addition to Saddlery Lofts, Dakota is also talking to CRDA about its proposal to build three apartment buildings containing a total of 180 units next to the former Bow Tie Cinemas on New Park Avenue in Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood.
That project, which Dakota is calling Edge 400, first came to light last October when the firm sought permission from the city to subdivide the property around the theater.
There’s more work ahead, but if CRDA is interested, it could mean a construction start as soon as late fall, Arista hopes.
Pandemic’s impact
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred massive job losses when it struck New England early last year.
Whereas many office and other white-collar workers simply started working from home with their financial situation unaffected, employees of restaurants, hotels and other service businesses took it on the chin.
“The service workers have been decimated and those tend to be the people who occupy our spaces,” Arista said.
Across Dakota’s multistate apartment portfolio, its occupancy and rent collection rates, which are both usually around the 95-97% mark, fell to about 90% or slightly below that, Arista said.
“So we did take a hit, but it wasn’t significant,” he said. “We had been bracing ourselves because we had no idea what would happen.”
He’s further encouraged by the continued rollout of COVID-19 vaccines as well as the recently passed $1.9 trillion federal stimulus law. The American Rescue Plan contains billions of dollars for states to assist low-income tenants cover their back rent.
Dakota’s Columbus Commons project in New Britain, which the firm developed with Xenolith Partners, debuted its first 80 apartments in March 2020. Despite the timing, Arista said the lease-up has gone well, with apartment occupancy at nearly 99%, though brokers are still seeking tenants for approximately 11,000 square feet of first-floor retail space.
Besides economic impacts on renters and consumers, the pandemic also created price spikes and shortages for some construction materials and appliances.
“It didn’t really hurt our projects, but it did extend our lead times,” Arista said.
Dakota still managed to recently complete its 144-unit Oak Tree Village apartment project in Griswold, which broke ground early last year before the pandemic hit.
Bond Commission clears millions for Hartford-area projects
Zachary Vasile
he State Bond Commission on Friday approved tens of millions of dollars worth of grants and loans for redevelopment projects in Greater Hartford, including office-to-apartment renovations in the Capital City and the planned demolition of the former Ames department store headquarters in Rocky Hill.
The 10-member commission voted to authorize two loans totaling $13.5 million to help Spinnaker Real Estate Partners convert the office building at 55 Elm St. in Hartford into 180 apartments, with a co-working space and restaurant.
The money will come in the form of a $7 million construction loan and a $6.5 million bridge loan.
Spinnaker, which is based in Norwalk, bought the historic, six-story office building in 2020 for $6.8 million and plans to spend about $63 million on renovations.
Efforts to convert student townhomes on Temple Street into 88 conventional apartments units got a $2 million boost from the commission.
That project is part of the second phase of the broader Pratt Street Initiative Partnership, which is also converting buildings on Pratt and Trumbull streets into new housing.
The Capital Region Development Authority serves as the funding conduit for both the Elm Street and Pratt redevelopment projects.
CRDA also got $1.5 million to replace waterproofing systems, pavers, and protection membranes at the plaza and esplanade connecting the Connecticut Convention Center and the Connecticut Science Center.
Nonprofit developer Sheldon Oak received loans amounting to $4 million to support the conversion of the Martin Luther King Apartments on Van Block Avenue into a mixed-income apartment community.
The commission allocated $500,000 to the town of Rocky Hill to help finance the demolition of the long-vacant Ames corporate offices on Main Street and Silas Deane Highway. The project has an estimated total price tag of $1.2 million.
Officials in Rocky Hill are hoping to clear the 180,000-square-foot site for a future mixed-used development.
The complex has sat empty since 2002, when Ames went out of business.
CTNext, a program overseen by Connecticut Innovations, the state’s venture capital arm, received the $7.3 million it requested to fund entrepreneurial support and higher education initiatives.
BRIANNA GURCIULLO
“The people who live and work in Stamford know firsthand
that this station needs a major overhaul,” Giulietti said. “As the gateway to
Connecticut, we have to modernize this facility and address how customers
navigate it, from access to shuttle operation to pedestrian pathways and
overall customer experience.”
Giulietti noted that the state DOT plans to seek
input from the public on how the train station — which is
Connecticut’s busiest — could be improved.
“There is no question we have a lot of work to do,”
Giulietti said. “But let me be very clear, without (a) new funding stream,
proposed by the governor, without a highway-use fee on heavy trucks, and
without (the Transportation Climate Initiative), without any mechanism to
stabilize transportation funding in our state, we cannot upgrade the Stanford
Transportation Center, and we will not be able to meet the city’s
transportation needs of today and tomorrow.”
Giulietti was referring to Lamont’s proposal to impose a
mileage-based fee on large trucks and a regional program to lower carbon
emissions. Lamont championed
both at another train station — the Metro-North Railroad station in
Waterbury — last month.
On Friday, state Sen. Will Haskell, D-New Canaan, and state
Reps. Matt Blumenthal, Caroline Simmons and Daniel Fox, all Democrats who
represent parts of Stamford, stood with Lamont as he touted his proposals.
“We got to tell our friends up in Hartford, you can’t get
something for nothing,” Lamont said. “We’ve got to step up and do our part. We
got to pay for our fair share.”
“I know it’s not easy,” the governor added.
Blumenthal noted that President Joe Biden’s American Jobs
Plan proposed $80 billion in spending on Amtrak. Blumenthal also wants an
“intercity rail trust fund,” which would be similar to the trust funds that
exist for highways and aviation, to be established.
“This will be the fight of this presidency to make sure the American Jobs Plan is achieved, and right now, we’re running into a real buzz saw, as you know — Republican opposition,” Blumenthal said.